An Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo man is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday (8/7) in state District Court in Tierra Amarilla to face the charge of raping his stepdaughter, according to court documents.
Juan Lopez, 25, was indicted July 17 for a single count of criminal sexual penetration of a minor, documents state.
Lopez allegedly took the 7-year-old girl on a walk May 22, 2007, pushed her to the ground and pulled her shorts off before attempting to penetrate her, according to a police report.
The alleged abuse was disclosed when the victim’s grandmother noticed the girl acting depressed and asked her what was wrong, the report states. The little girl broke down crying and finally told her grandmother about the abuse, which allegedly occurred at Lopez’s aunt’s house.
Lopez pleaded guilty to battery on a household member in December 2005, according to an online court records database. According to a police report, Lopez’s wife at the time reported to police that she had been assaulted by Lopez five times during two months of marriage, but only wanted to press charges for one incident in which he allegedly punched her in the face while she was sitting in the car.
As a teenager, Lopez was a resident of Greater Santa Rosa Counseling and Alcohol Sure House, where his complaints of sexual assault by staff and other residents initiated a State Police investigation, according to a police report.
Lopez claimed boys at the facility “initiated” new residents by sticking objects in their rectum. Lopez, then 15, claimed the initiations were known as “oil checks” and implicated a staff member, whom he also accused of bringing alcohol into the facility.
Some other residents at the facility, ages 14 to 17, told police Lopez was lying, the report states; others said they had heard rumors of oil checks but never participated. One resident told police he was the victim of an initiation. No charges were ever filed in the case, as Assistant District Attorney Joseph Ulibarri found no evidence of the allegations, and Lopez failed to show up for a scheduled medical examination to collect evidence.
Lopez’s stay at the Sure House came after a 1997 incident in which he and three other juveniles burglarized a Los Alamos home, stealing a total of $6,355 worth of jewelry and other property. The group was caught after 15-year-old Charlotte Gallegos, one of the other burglars, brought Polaroid pictures to school that the foursome took of each other burglarizing the house, and even playing with the homeowner’s lingerie, according to the police report.